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Hi all,These are my questions:1- What are the best lenses of Canon for Portrature?2- What are the best lenses of canon for Landscape or nature?3- What are the best lenses for wildlife including birds?4- What are the best lesnes for Sports.5- I want a studio lighting system or kit good enough and powerful, not less then 1500 or 1600 (prefer minimum 1600, but want more) for many kinds of photography that need enough strong lights indoor or outdoor (but not very expensive more than $2500-4000), and I hope it is available in my area (UAE in the Middle East). Otherwise, I can't buy from online stores which don't have internationally shipping or orders.6- What other accessories can I get for my Flash 580EX?7- What are good meduim format cameras that can be used in the studio or in general outdoor sometimes?Thank you. Regards,Tareq

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12/16/2006 10:01:29 AM

Bob Fately

Boy, Tareq, you sure ask a lot of questions! :-)Portraiture lens - depends on yor style of shooting portraits, but since the 85MM focal length is frequently preferred for head-and-shoulder shots then a lens that gives you about that same angle of view would make sense. This might be an 85MM f1.8 or f1.4 on a "full frame" digital, or a 50MM lens on a digital with "crop factor". In any event, you want a relatively fast lens to minimize depth of field.Landscape or nature - usually wide angle lenses are preferred to gather in the beauty of an entire scene and give greater depth of field so everything is in focus. Again, much depends on your style as well. Perhaps a 24MM or wider lens would make sense, but that's not necessary either. A prime lens will probably be better than a zoom, though the pro-level zooms are almost as high quality as prime lenses nowadays.Bird/nature shooting generally requires long telephotos - 400MM or longer, and f4 or faster. When you see shooters lugging 10+ pounds of 400MMf2.8 lens into a blind you realize it's because birds (and much wildlife) are skittish and you can't get very close. You want the fastest glass possible to ensure the ability to catch shots at dusk and dawn, and IS would probably help as well.Sports - what kind? Curling? Baseball? Auto racing? Gymnastics? So much depends on the venue and the sport, though a fast zoom (70-200 f2.8) couldn't hurt for most situations. Again, though, if you wantched the Olympics or pro football or soccer events you see the sidelines crammed with photogs using the same huge long fast lenses that bird shooters use.For lighting, I can recommend you check out Quantum flashes and accessories - kind of costly but very powerful and flexible. Flash accessories - there are all kinds of diffusers out there; I use Gary Fong's Lightsphere but others like different versions.Medium format - do you mean film? If money is not an issue, Hasselblad is always a great option. Mamiya, Fuji and Pentax are other brands to check out as well.